Nutrition is hands down the HARDEST part of the health and wellness journey. That is because the market today is flooded with quick fixes and fad diets that make knowing what to do confusing! I speak from experience as a recovered chronic fad dieter!

In order to change something, you need to know WHAT needs to be changed, then you can focus on HOW you are going to change it. The best thing you can do at the start of your journey is a nutrition audit. A nutrition audit is simply a review of how you are currently eating, without changing anything. This can be an eye-opening experience for you! I recommend tracking for 2-3 days, one of those days being a weekend day because our weekend and weekday schedules are often very different.

The awesome part of a nutritional audit is you can do it at a level that fits where you are at in your journey. For some, simply writing out what you eat in a day is enough. Seeing how many times you snacked, what you snacked on, or even how many times you ate out will be enough for you to make some positive changes! You can reduce your snacks, switch to healthier snacks and focus on eating more meals at home for a few weeks.

Maybe you are a little more versed in nutrition but have been a little lax and are looking to get back on track. If so, you will want to take it to the next level of auditing and keep track of how much protein, carbohydrates, and fats you are eating each day. After tracking for a few days you can see what adjustments you need to make to help you reach your goals. Maybe your fat was really high but it turns out you were really overdoing it on the heavy cream in your coffee and that’s an easy fix! Or your protein intake is low which would explain why you have been tired with poor recovery lately. The audit will help you discover the changes you need to make.

A few things to remember over your 2-3 day audit. First, make sure you are not changing your eating habits so it does not “look bad” on paper. This is not for you to turn in or impress anyone, this is a reality check for how things are going. Yes, that can be hard, but it is important because you can’t fix what is broken if you don’t know it’s broken! Second, account for everything, from the cream and sugar you put in your morning coffee to the few m&m’s you snuck in the school pick-up line, mindless snacking is a habit most don’t realize they have! You also want to track your water intake, you would be surprised how much dehydration can affect your weight loss, energy, and recovery! You can read more about hydration in the “4 Simple Healthy Lifestyle Habits” blog post.

The benefit of starting/restarting your nutritional journey with an audit allows you to identify the changes that you need to focus on and allows you to take a more sustainable approach to your nutritional changes, instead of just going “all in” on some crazy new COMPLETELY DIFFERENT way of eating you can implement 1 or 2 small changes at a time! These small changes add up quickly and make a big difference long term.

If you are looking for support in your health and wellness journey you can find that with the Goddess Squad Membership through the Warrior Goddess Fitness APP! Monthly memberships come with monthly fitness programming, nutritional education, recipes, habit tracker, and accountability through the Squad! We also do monthly challenges that are centered around fitness, nutrition, and emotional health, to help us all grow in all three pillars of health and wellness. You can find out more about membership and sign up here: Goddess Squad.

Even if you don’t join the Squad, I encourage you to start focusing on making healthy a lifestyle and start your nutrition audit today!